The Mixed Messages of Mike Tomlin

Another Mike Tomlin press conference and another bunch of clichés and classic one-liners….

If the Steelers lose this week will someone please play ‘Yakety Sax’ in the background of his press conference next week?

Unlike many of you I don’t put this entire debacle on Mike Tomlin.

I believe he is a good coach and motivator but I believe too that he has been hamstrung to a degree by bad drafts and questionable upper management decisions.

With that said, I have to question Tomlin on a couple of things.

First, how does he come off the field in Foxboro spewing forth his belief that guys ‘lacked effort’ and then two days later change his tune? I’m guessing there are certain factors at play here but I’ll never know exactly what those are and you won’t either.

Call it whatever you want to but when Tom Brady went play-action and torched Ike Taylor and Ryan Clark in the fourth quarter that to me wasn’t just getting beat. That was lack of effort and attention to detail.

According to Tomlin in his presser though, lack of effort didn’t exist on Sunday. He said it was simply a matter of getting beat.

OK, fair enough but then how does Mike Tomlin explain himself by removing Antonio Brown from the game?

On Ben Roethlisberger’s second interception, it was clear one of the receivers ran the wrong route. Quarterbacks and receivers work very hard to make sure they are on the same page for each and every play but sometimes mistakes happen.

I just don’t understand how Tomlin can ‘punish’ Brown for his mistake yet no one of the defensive side of the ball was benched. Correct me if I’m wrong here but I’m pretty sure there mistakes and blown assignments by several members of Dick LeBeau’s unit were there not? Those typically happen when you give up 55 points.

Something tells me there must be more to this story than what is on the surface.

It makes no sense whatsoever to have your franchise QB on the field when the game is already decided and then you yank his top receiving threat for a single mistake. That point in the game was not the time to make a statement and I believe Tomlin knows it in hindsight.

These are ultimately the things that go under the microscope when you’re team is 2-6. Losing is the purest form of revealing character and true leadership and right now Mike Tomlin has to rein those things in because the messages are mixed and they will soon start falling on deaf ears.

Marc Uhlmann writes for and co-owns www.steelcityblitz.com. Follow him on Twitter @steeldad and follow the website at @SCBlitz. He can be heard Mondays on Trib-Live Radio at 630pm ET talking Steelers and is a blogger for ESPN 970 in Pittsburgh.